bobbyhawks wrote:
I'm not sure I follow your train of thought. Is knowing an approximate number of parking spaces, regardless of their type, not helpful information to those wanting to understand parking problems (or lack thereof) downtown? Obviously, everything deserves a context, but general numbers are often very useful.
this idea is overly simple and would give misleading results. the model being proposed would need to be super complex to give a helpful result.
How about a more useful idea
what we need to do is not a study of the total number of spaces downtown but to identify the parts of downtown that could add no more residents or jobs without adding spots and seeing if this is caused by a lack of spots currently or if there's plenty but they're not open to use by everyone. our core problem is the huge number tied up to a specific building.
Go back to the idea that the optimum parking always leaves a few spots empty in order to drive the perception people can park in the area of their destination. in other words, we *want* empty spots everywhere downtown at all times.
Let's look at the Pickwick Plaza building as a place this is a problem (933 McGee).
the many spots around are given up to some other use already. One garage is UMB only, another is tied to the old federal reserve, another is controlled by the federal courts, another by the Grand Ave temple, another by the courthouse residential building, another is potentially becoming the YMCA. There goes the majority of spots.
Look at the P&L tower. it's actually going to reduce the number of spots downtown in a busy area, firstly by changing the street dynamic of the block, secondly it's leasing current public spots in a garage and thirdly taking a surface lot off the market.
This area is all P&L, H&R Block or other similar commerical tower tie ups. There's one notable garage in the area and it's partially monthly only.
This is the reason for a citywide parking rules charge and tax regardless of structure type. To make it financially feasible to have parking only by turning it into a market driven commodity. Not a minimum parking code driven requirement. Parking maximums would come later in stages when it becomes doable to live *and* work across much of the city without needing a car. we're not there yet but there's people working towards this goal.
We're a long ways away, but long-term we need to have more buildings with parking below
We need to have blocks dedicated to parking structures 10 stories tall shared with everyone around the same height and no one has their own in building parking (there could be sky bridges)
we need to start layering. instead of a cap over i-670 let's sell air rights and have parking partially for the Sprint Center and partially for residential towers flanking it.
but all this density is going to require uncoupling as much parking from single use as we can and comprehensive rail transit for the rest